Micah Zarin Podcast

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In this episode I sat down with philosopher Simon Critchley, professor at the New School for Social Research and author of Mysticism, alongside my co-host Denis Calos. We got into what it means to live a mystical life, why growing up is the abdication of ecstasy, whether AI-generated music can be art, why suffering might be the precondition for making anything good, and why everyone wants to be the type of person who reads Nietzsche without actually reading Nietzsche. Also soccer, Suno, the Beatles, and me attempting German.If you like this kind of thing, I write longer essays on philosophy and consciousness on my Substack: https://substack.com/@micahzarinSubscribe for more long-form conversations with philosophers, scientists, and people thinking seriously about hard problems.CHAPTERS00:00 Intros01:05 Mysticism07:29 The abdication of ecstasy15:46 Is thinking play?18:06 Songwriting24:21 AI music40:05 Reality privilege46:59 Suffering52:26 Analytic vs continental1:02:24 Overthinking1:18:10 LARPing1:32:33 AdviceMusic licensed through Soundstripe.Code: CO3NUX8TBBKHZNLN

00:00 What makes something creative00:42 Intros01:51 Can anything be truly novel? (psychological vs historical creativity)05:05 Influence vs originality, and music lawsuits09:34 Originality isn't enough11:01 Discovery vs creativity15:04 Combinatorial vs transformational creativity19:14 Can AI be creative?25:19 Word salad30:28 Does a painting have value if no one ever sees it?31:32 Is Baby Shark better than Beethoven?37:31 Creativity and culture42:27 Philosophy49:51 Is anything in the world without creativity?54:38 Is translation a creative act?1:00:07 Adaptation vs inspiration1:03:36 Life advice

Karl Friston — the world’s most-cited neuroscientist and architect of the Free Energy Principle — joins me for a conversation about how brains make sense of reality, why we seek uncertainty, what beauty is, why psychedelics dissolve our usual models of the world, etcWe talk about predictive processing, active inference, surprise, Bayesian belief updating, jokes, curiosity, trauma, beauty, psychedelics, and the strange possibility that life itself is a kind of controlled hallucination.Read my Substack essay that frames part of this conversation: Beauty is a Loophole https://micahzarin.substack.com/p/bea...0:00 — Karl Friston cold open0:36 — Intro1:04 — The Free Energy Principle, briefly7:20 — Technical neuroscience27:10 —jokes 33:33 — Curiosity38:19 — uncertainty 48:24 — Goblins52:40 — Psychedelics1:13:31 — Awe, beauty, trauma, and dissolving old models1:38:10 — Curiosity1:41:29 — Karl Friston’s life advice

good video. subscribe and like if u enjoyed. dislike if u disenjoyed.lance:‪@lanceindependent‬ lance substack: https://substack.com/@lanceindependent00:00 Cold open & intro00:38 Why moral realists annoy him06:56 Arguments for moral realism15:04 Philosophy38:22 Why anti-realists get misrepresented45:55 “So slavery isn’t wrong?”50:43 The magic beans fallacy54:49 Moral reasoning and reality57:24 Authenticity, cancellation, and tribalism1:03:05 Productive disagreement in real life1:06:01 Why care about philosophy?1:17:19 Advice for studying philosophy1:20:46 Life advice1:24:29 Closing

828 views May 31, 2026 InterviewsMathematical physicist John Baez (This Week's Finds, the n-Category Café) on whether human thought still means anythingOne of the most wide-ranging conversations I've had.Read my writing: https://substack.com/@micahzarinChapters:00:00 Intro01:19 Chords04:10 Doubt07:26 Teaching09:23 Categories16:32 Antimatter22:08 Meaning29:03 AI47:21 Tate49:25 Heroes51:39 Chess57:05 Sycophancy1:00:03 Consciousness1:04:42 E81:07:13 Advice1:10:36 Origins

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In this conversation, I talk with philosopher Richard Chappell about moral realism, suffering, moral responsibility, effective altruism, AI consciousness, digital sentience, and why our intuitions about machines may change once the machines actually arrive.Richard’s blog: https://www.goodthoughts.blogMy Substack: https://substack.com/@micahzarinTimestamps0:00 Consciousness0:53 Realism3:36 Reflection9:23 Mathematics24:41 Suffering31:05 Consequences41:33 Responsibility49:29 AI58:02 Advice

Robin Hanson is an economist at George Mason University, the inventor of prediction markets, and the author of The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain. In this conversation he argues that our civilization is failing because we broke the engine of cultural evolution, and that the only way out is to let capitalism run more things, which I pushed back on, badly.We also got into prediction markets, why we don't actually want accurate information, authenticity as hidden performance, foragers vs farmers, falling fertility, insider trading, and what young people should do with their lives.📚 Robin's work:Overcoming Bias: https://www.overcomingbias.comThe Age of Em: https://ageofem.comThe Elephant in the Brain: https://www.elephantinthebrain.com🎧 More from me:Substack: https://substack.com/@micahzarin⏱️ Chapters:00:00 — Hook00:11 — Intro01:27 — Philosophy05:04 — Kalshi & Polymarket13:56 — Group loyalty, and implausible beliefs21:15 — Cultural evolution27:14 — Why civilization is collapsing51:41 — The incoherence of utopia57:22 — Where I tried to defend anti-capitalism1:16:21 — Life advice for me

I sat down with Matthew Adelstein (Bentham's Bulldog) to debate one of the most popular arguments for God's existence: the fine-tuning argument.🔗 Bentham's Bulldog: https://benthams.substack.com 🔗 My Substack: https://substack.com/@micahzarin0:00 - Hook0:14 - Intros6:11 - Fine-Tuning Explained9:10 - Independent Constants?21:33 - Bill Gates Analogy40:51 - Islands and Continents1:02:06 - Why God?1:04:06 - Advice